The highly controversial no-warrant surveillance program initiated after the September 11 terrorist attacks relied on a "factually flawed" legal analysis inappropriately provided by a single Justice Department official, according to a report to Congress on Friday. The report was compiled by the inspectors general of the nation's top intelligence agencies, the Pentagon and the Justice Department. The report, mandated by Congress, provides fresh context to information previously leaked in press accounts and buttressed by both congressional testimony and books written ...

The little number on the tag on a pair of pants that indicates size can mean a lot to a person, and retailers know it. That's why, in recent years, as the American population has become generally more overweight, brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing. "You may actually be a size 14 and, according to whatever particular store you're in, you come out a size ...

Plainclothes investigators sent to test security at federal buildings in four U.S. cities were successful in smuggling bomb components through guard posts at all 10 of the sites they visited, according to a government report. The investigators then assembled the bombs in restrooms and freely entered numerous government offices while carrying the devices in briefcases, the report said. The buildings contained offices of several federal lawmakers as well as agencies within the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security, which ...

North Korea test-fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Bahia Bakari, 13, arrived at Paris' Le Bourget airport early on Thursday morning on a French government plane and was met by her father. She is reported to have been transferred to an unnamed hospital suffering from shock and a broken collar bone. The Airbus A310 went down early Tuesday with 142 passengers and 11 crew members ...

An Indian court has handed down the first conviction in a series of attacks on Christians in an eastern state last year, authorities said Wednesday. Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the agency report. Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter who had worked for the BBC and England's Channel 4 network admitted having ...

A reporter for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran has confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday. Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the agency report. Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter who had worked for the BBC and England's Channel 4 network admitted ...

China's last-minute decision to postpone a controversial content-filtering application on computers sold there is the latest example of the trouble that Western technology companies face doing business in the world's fastest growing economy. The software application, called "Green Dam Youth Escort," unleashed a flood of complaints toward Beijing, making strange bedfellows of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Chinese "netizens" and trade groups representing the largest international businesses in China. Groups representing some of the largest companies in the ...

The airline operating an Airbus A310-300 jet that crashed in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday with 153 people aboard was being monitored by EU authorities, according to France's transport minister. Dominique Bussereau told French television that inspectors in his country had also noted several faults on the doomed Yemenia Airways plane, Agence France-Presse reported. "The company was not on the blacklist (of airlines banned from European airspace) but was being subjected to closer inspection by us and was due to ...

United States accident investigators are probing two recent failures of airspeed and altitude indications aboard Airbus A330s -- the same type of plane that crashed into the Atlantic nearly a month ago. The planes landed safely and there were no injuries or damage, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. One flight was between the United States and Brazil in May and the other between Hong Kong and Japan in June. The probes were launched in the aftermath of the ...

Michael Jackson's fame truly knew no borders: He was even the first international popstar to perform in post-Soviet-era Russia. Jackson first visited Moscow in September 1993, just two years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Until then, it had been illegal even to purchase his songs. The historic concert sparked scenes of near-hysteria among young Russians who embraced him as a symbol of all things American. Their devotion was all the more extraordinary as few of them ...